Chapter 625 — The Violet Token

CHAPTER 625

The Violet Token

“Twelve pills,” Shi Feng said, and set the bottle on the table. “One at each new moon. That’s a year.”

It was the next morning. The shutters were still down, and the back room smelled of the night’s furnace. Kou Yueqin sat in the same chair, back straight, hands folded on the closed manual. Her colour was better. She still hadn’t said a word.

“And after a year?” Ao Tong asked.

“After a year, the knot grows back,” Shi Feng said. “The counter-pill cut the top off. The root is shaped exactly like the pill that made it. To cut it out, I need to know how that pill was made. Which herbs, which fire, which batch.” He tapped the bottle. “The original recipe will tell me how to remove what the pill left behind.”

Ao Tong looked at his elder. Kou Yueqin gave the smallest nod.

“Eleven years ago, in the ninth month, the elder broke through at the Valley,” Ao Tong said. “Three days later a sealed box was left at the outer gate. A pill to steady a new stage. A gift. No name, no letter.”

“And she ate a pill from a box with no name?” Shi Feng asked, startled.

“It came with a Valley password,” Ao Tong said flatly. “We thought it came from one of our own.”

Kou Yueqin reached into her sleeve and set a small box on the table. It was plain sandalwood, a hand long, with a brass clasp gone green. She’d kept it for eleven years.

Shi Feng turned it over. He checked the wood, the clasp, the joints and the inside of the lid. He even sniffed it. There were no marks, no carving and no seller’s stamp. Any market in the Empire sold a thousand boxes like it every day.

“It tells us nothing, Elder,” Shi Feng admitted. “There isn't a maker's mark or anything that could lead back to the buyer.”

He thought of the triple fold in the black blood and said nothing more. A Pit pill at the Valley gate. A Valley password. He didn’t know who had carried it, and he had no proof. Saying a guess aloud in Wanhe would only hand someone a reason to come and close his mouth.

“Then we wait,” Ao Tong said.

“You wait a year in comfort,” Shi Feng corrected him cheerfully. “Now the bill. The diagnosis, the counter-pill at seven clouds, twelve suppressants and one very good explanation of verse seven. Sixty thousand stones.”

Ao Tong’s jaw tightened. Tao Xiaoyu, at the door with the Commission Book, didn’t even blink.

Kou Yueqin stood. She took a pouch from her sleeve and set it on the counter, and the stones inside clinked heavily. On top of the pouch she laid a small disc of violet jade carved with a single bolt of lightning.

Then she spoke for the first time.

“The red ink was mine,” Kou Yueqin said. Her voice was low and hoarse from disuse. “Eleven years of it.”

She walked out into the lane without looking back. Ao Tong stared at the jade disc for a long breath, then followed her.

Tao Xiaoyu picked up the token carefully and turned it to the light.

“Master, what is this?” Tao Xiaoyu asked.

“I don't know,” Shi Feng replied, examining the carved lightning. “But she left it where I'd find it instead of offering it to me. Whatever it means, she didn't want to explain it in front of us.”

That night Ao Tong came back alone and sat at Tao Erniang’s noodle board as if he’d always eaten there.

“The token opens the Valley’s gate,” Ao Tong said, without being asked. “She’s given out three in her life. Don’t sell it.”

“I never sell gifts, Brother Ao,” Shi Feng said, sitting across from him with two bowls. “I only sell pills.”

Ao Tong ate in silence. Shi Feng let him finish half the bowl before he asked.

“You were at the Ruin when I went down,” Shi Feng said quietly. “The Records Hall wouldn’t tell me anything. So I’ll ask you. The people who carried me out were from the Serene Jade Sect. Their young lady was called Nan…”

Ao Tong’s hand came down flat on the table.

“Don’t,” Ao Tong said. “Not that sect’s inner names. Not in a street, and not in a room.”

Shi Feng looked at him. The man’s face was as calm as ever, but his hand hadn’t moved.

“Why?” Shi Feng asked.

“Because the Valley’s elders don’t say them either,” Ao Tong said. “Hot oil fears a drop of water. I’m a Valley disciple, and I’ll live longer if I never heard what you nearly said.”

He picked up his chopsticks again as if nothing had happened.

So that’s the Serene Jade Sect, Shi Feng thought. A Valley elder will queue for two hours, but a Valley disciple won’t let me finish a name. Fine. I’ll keep it in the box with everything else.

“One more thing,” Ao Tong said, putting a copper on the board. “The City Lord’s steward has been asking at the inns about your fees. What you charge, who pays and how much.”

“Is he looking for an alchemist?” Shi Feng asked.

“No,” Ao Tong said. “He’s counting your money.”

He stood, nodded once to Tao Erniang and walked off down the dark lane.

A City Lord's steward wouldn't ask those questions out of curiosity, Shi Feng thought. He wanted something from the shop.

Shi Feng smiled into the noodle steam. Let the man come and say what he wanted. He'd deal with the proposal when he heard it.